William Walker Atkinson book discussion

 Last week, John Michael Greer wrote a lovely little introductory post on affirmations, where he lays out seven basic rules for constructing affirmations.  I already picked up a few here and there - usually in the answers of Magic Mondays - enough to realize William Walker Atkinson was not a good source for affirmations.  There is a particularly bad example in The Master Mind, but I can't put my finger on at present.  I do recall the first two sentences (and right there is a problem in that it is too long for easy memorization): "Don't be such a weakling!  You are stronger than that."

Ouch.  That is the one that stuck out like a broken thumb on the first read-through, and as far as bad examples go, that's a real winner of a loser.  It starts out in the negative, which the subconscious does not process, then go into the swamp of relatives.  Stronger than what, exactly?  You should be trying to pip the bulls-eye with a sniper rifle, not a sawed-off shotgun.

So with just the first part of one affirmation, we illustrate two major blunders.

Typing up the two authors' names, makes me wonder if I should adopt a third name myself.  You know, sort of as a pseudonym to tag onto my given and family names.  This also brings up the question: three names, or three parts of a name?

 Checking in for this week: I've started formatting The Master Mind and have gotten up to chapter 4 now.  This book lacks an introduction, and also seems to have been written as a book from the get-go, as opposed to The Power of Concentration, which started as a correspondence course.

One thing I noted last year in Memory was his extensive use of quotation, and in this book he doesn't even list a last name as attribution, preferring to say, "a well-known psychologist," or "an authority on the subject."  Some of these Google can find ... but there are some it can't, except for in Atkinson's books.  I am tempted to go on the supposition that Atkinson - writing as Dumont - quoted his earlier books that were written under his own name.  It's certainly possible, and I'm sure quite a few of us have seen people do the same online.  This does not invalidate the quotes - those stand or fall on their merit for how well they've held up over the past century.  Atkinson may or may not have been a con man, but I think he was no charlatan.  He had some real knowledge of magic.

What makes the previous assertion so humorous is the first paragraph of The Master Mind:

Hey, Billy boy, pull the other leg while you're at it ... I think this is the proverbial wink-and-nod to those paying attention.  Then again, I've only read up to chapter four so far.  Chapters 3 and 4 slowed me down quite a bit, mostly because they left me with the feeling that there is more below the surface of what is written.

Oh, related to the topic of large quotations is a name Google and Wikipedia are giving up next to nothing when searched: Reuben Post Halleck.  In particular is a book he wrote called Psychology and Psychic Culture, which Atkinson loves to quote.  I've found a birth year and a death year for him, and a list of other titles he wrote, and the abstract of one academic paper on him and one of his contemporaries who published a book on neurology within a year of his book on the subject ... but as far as any kind of biography goes ... nada.  Anyone know anything about him?